I was lucky to discover Roasted Almond Chai from Fava Tea Company thanks to a tea trade with fellow Sororitea Sisters, and now this is one if my favorite chai teas.

This is a decaf blend, so I find it most satisfying as a sweet treat to ease me through a rough afternoon or evening. This tea is perfectly both sweet and spicy. The dry leaf in the bag smells exceptionally creamy and a touch fruity, like marzipan candies. In the loose leaf, there are cloves, cinnamon, and huge cardamom pods, promising more spice in the brew.

Brewed, this blend is surprisingly pink, and I had a moment of worry: pink?! Is there hibiscus in here? I read the label again and saw beetroot as an ingredient but no hibiscus. Taking a sip, I was relieved. The pink color was clearly from the beetroot which added a wonderful natural sweetness that did not get in the way of the other flavors.

The one change I would make is to rename this blend Marzipan Chai, instead of Roasted Almond Chai. There is not much in the way of tasted flavors or pure nut-like flavors. The beetroot and almond make for a blend that is sweet like a cake with creamy frosting. This tea is driven by its candied almond taste, coupled with the warming spices of cinnamon and cardamom. Even without milk, this tea is so smooth and creamy, a perfect dessert. I will be stocking up on this chai the next chance I get!

Growing up, I drank herbal teas like fresh ginger tea during New England's harsh winters and iced blueberry tea during its humid summers. Over time, I was tempted into trying a wider variety of loose leaf teas by the fandom-themed blends available online. I have since gone on to design my own blends, and I greatly enjoy drafting up flavor ideas and drawing tea labels.
When I'm not thinking about tea I can be found reading novels and comic books, playing video games, or watching movies; my favorite genres being history, humor, sci-fi, and fantasy.
Generally, I prefer bold teas: spicy chais, rich black teas, even smoky lapsang souchong on occasion. But I have also dabbled in herbal rooibos, flavored oolongs, and traditional matcha. I'm glad to be expanding my palette by tasting and reviewing new teas and blends.
Find me on Steepster: http://steepster.com/A2shedsjackson
Fandom blends: http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/list.html?userId=292149

Steeped with a heaping tablespoon of leaves at 175 degrees in about 1 cup of water.

This tea was a new experience for me! I’ve tried lots of flavored green teas, but never one where the green tea was a substitute for black tea in a chai blend. As a result of this tea, I’ve realized how different these spices are outside of a conventional chai context and how much I take the black tea base for granted in chai blends!

As it steeps, I can detect a fragrance of spices; it smells like cinnamon and possibly cloves. The tea liquid isn’t very dark. In fact it’s only achieved a pale honeylike color after it’s finished steeping; it’s a little viscous, with nearly invisible flecks (of cinnamon, perhaps?) swimming in it.

The flavor is very different from any chai I’ve ever tried. The spices, instead of melding with a malty black tea flavor to form a rounded flavor profile, are instead mingling with the bright astringent green tea notes (grassy almost, but not much on the floral side that I can detect). This makes for a very focused flavor overall. It’s highly concentrated in the bright and forward flavor notes and not so much rounded out with the deeper tones that a black tea normally imparts to a chai (in my experience). It’s almost bitter, but then again, I may have oversteeped it a bit–I like my chais strong.

With milk, it’s suddenly not very strong at all. It still has spice flavors, but I’m really missing the black tea base here. And I know you aren’t really “supposed” to put milk in green tea, but that’s what I normally do with chai so I figured why not?

So to sum up, don’t expect this to taste like a more conventional chai! Instead, expect a bright, spicy, focused flavor that’s intended to be enjoyed alone or with a little sweetener; I recommend trying it without milk. In fact, I bet this would make a great iced tea!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green

Description

A superior blend of fresh green tea from Darjeeling blended with choicest Indian spices like Cardamom, Cinnamon, Clove & Black Peppercorns. Discover a smooth fulfilling aroma of fresh greens with delicious undertones of raw spices in every sip. The liquor is bright green with an energizing aroma. A unique chai tea which can be served with or without milk.

Hi! My name is Tabitha and I'm an uprooted PNW native living in the South with my husband and my cocker spaniel.
My favorite teas are usually dark and strong and go well with milk and sugar. I like to combine tea-drinking with all of my favorite activities, such as listening to music, reading YA fiction, knitting, and writing blog and website content for businesses. Because I'm a well-rounded person, I also have other interests, such as wearing mismatched socks and pretending to be ambidextrous.

We are starting to wind down our Vegan MoFo prompts, only have a few days left but it sure has been fun to match up tea with our vegan friends at Vegan MoFo. Today’s prompt was a bit harder to match up but I think we did it in a way. Today’s prompt was to recreate your favorite food memory. While there are lots of teas out there that can conjure about memories from our past, today I thought I’d chat about a tea that I’m absolutely going nuts over and have for some time! Let my love for all things #tumeric begin!

I’m going to come right out and say it…I LOVE TURMERIC! So when I heard that Chico Chai had a new product highlighting this incredible ingredient I couldn’t wait to try it! Introducing…Golden Turmeric Loose Leaf Chai from Chico Chai!

Golden Turmeric Loose Leaf Chai from Chico Chai contains rooibos, dried coconut, nutmeg, ginger, orange peel, and cardamom. I was excited to see how this blend of flavors would work with a Rooibos base. As for the aroma upon opening the tin – Golden Turmeric Loose Leaf Chai from Chico Chai smelled like wondrous chai! Sure it was SPICY but there was a hint of sweet from both the rooibos and the coconut AND it was even a bit savory! Perhaps that was because of the turmeric ‘making friends with’ the ginger. But you know what…the orange in this was surprisingly lovely, too, but more of an afterthought.

Golden Turmeric Loose Leaf Chai from Chico Chai was full of surprises! Eventho you could still see that there was turmeric loose and buy itself flowing freely among the dry ingredients you could also tell that it stuck to the coconut really well, too! I can’t say enough about this Golden Turmeric Loose Leaf Chai from Chico Chai!!! I absolutely LOVE it! You have to REALLY like chai and really like turmeric and lucky for me – I do! This is blended so well! I don’t think I would change anything about it! This one will be hard for me to share with others but I want to pass it along to my Sororitea Sisters to see what they think about it, too! Ahhhh…I’m so conflicted! But for good reason…Golden Turmeric Loose Leaf Chai from Chico Chai ROCKS!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Rooibos Blend

Description

Turmeric blended with rooibos, dried coconut, nutmeg, ginger, orange peel and cardamom. A rich, warming tea, blended specifically for the cool autumn weather. Blended in small batches, by hand in Chico, California. Only Organic Ingredients and Fair Trade Organic teas are used to make Chico Chai.

Co-Founder/Co-Creator of Sororitea Sisters at Sororitea Sisters
Jennifer (TeaEqualsBliss) is in her upper 30s and lives in the eastern snowbelt area of the US with her husband, 3 dogs, and cat (however the number of furkids can change at anytime as she LOVES providing a forever home for many shelter animals. Her several interests include music, movies, veganism, sports, traveling, collecting Baseball Cards and Unicorns, Radio, Computers, Crafting, and of course…TEA. She started drinking tea at the tender age of 3 thanks to her Grandmother and her love for tea has gotten stronger with each year! In addition to being a co-founder/co-creator of Sororitea Sisters - her main site is MyBlissfulJourney.com. Find out more about Jennifer on MyBlissfulJourney.com.

It is with thanks to CuppaGeek that I am able to try this tea. An exciting winter Chai blend all the way from Canada. Living in Leicester, United Kingdom I do consider myself somewhat of a Chai expert. We boast a large multi-cultural society here and we have the largest Diwali celebrations outside of India. As such with a large Asian community you can find unique family recipe Chai in many restaurants and shops. Since I was young Masala Chai has been a favourite of mine and I have tried hundreds of blends over the years. It is with happiness and joy that I get to try another Chai blend.

This particular Chai blend called December Chai aims to “bring warmth to the tea drinker, no matter what time of year it happens to be” and that is a very sweet sentiment which makes me even happier to drink it.

Opening the sealed sample packet my nose positively tingles at the spiciness. A strong concoction of: clove, cinnamon and licorice with a peppery finish strike the nostrils with their presence. I have no idea of what spices are present though I can definitely see pieces of cinnamon bark in the blend. The black leaves are loosely chopped and thinly rolled.

There are many ways to brew Chai but I will go with a good Western method. Approx 5g of tea blend into 320ml cup using boiling water for 3 minutes. Served with a splash of vegan rice milk. Sweetener is a usual addition but when reviewing I leave it out.

Once steeped the tea bares a strong cinnamon spiciness that matches the raw scent.

The first few sips offer a dry, spicy punch that trickles down my throat with a little cough. Very strong and spicy! The cinnamon and clove like refreshing note are dominant on a medium strength black base that adds depth to the blend. It leaves a fragrant aftertaste. It’s strength is very appealing and is a nice everyday Chai. In fact I think this would be a nice morning Chai because it has that kick to wake you up. It was stated to be a warming blend and I can agree with that, it’s warming and cuts through the crisp, cold air with a glow.

Overall: I am nothing if not honest. This was a nice Chai but lacked a few things for my personal taste. Some cardamom pods would have been a nice touch to lift the dry, cinnamon note that pretty much dominated the blend. While I adore cinnamon it was rather dry which was mostly noticeable in the after taste. Despite that it held it’s own compared to the many Chai blends I have tasted and is similar to some I have had the privilege of trying. While it didn’t get top marks it got better than average and I know I will be enjoying the rest of this in my mug.

Until next time, Happy Steeping!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Black Leaf with Spices

Description:

Bring the enchantment of December’s twilight into every month of the year. Rejuvenate yourself with this exotic mix of high-grown tea and spices. The fair trade black tea comes from Sri Lanka, while the mix of spices and seeds come from all over the world, mostly from Kerala, India’s spice coast.

My name is Kayleigh Jade and I was born in Leicester, England, UK. I have always had a love for herbal and fruit tea (even as a child) but my curiosity got the best of me in my teen years and I started to look into other teas. I eventually found some companies in the UK that offered different teas and eBay was an easy source for international (particularly Chinese) teas. I found myself liking specific teas more than others such as Pu Erh and jasmine green pearls (which are two of my favourites still to date) and my obsession kept growing. Now I am in tea clubs and regularly order new products to try and though I have tried a good variety of different teas I still consider myself to be a beginner student. My goal in life is to keep tasting and steeping and learning and hopefully by having this blog I will pass on what I learn and feel.
My name is kittylovestea because it combined my two favourite things in the world. Those being cats and tea (of course!). My cats are also interested in some of my teas (especially dessert or sweet teas) and always seem to become excited once they smell what I’m brewing. I have arrived home before to find a few tea packets on the floor with suspicious looking holes which any cat owner know are made from biting. I now have to be careful with the storing of my tea but it’s nice to know my 4 angels have the same interests as me. =^_^=